Twitter introduces Twitter Lite in India; Vodafone is its first launch partner

BENGALURU: On close heels with YouTube launching  its data friendly version, Twitter, yesterday, also has launched its global Twitter Lite product from India.

Twitter Lite is a new mobile web experience accessible to anyone with a smartphone or tablet with a browser, optimized for speed with up to 30% faster launch times, reduces data usage up to 70% with data saver mode turned on, and takes up less than 1MB on mobile devices. Of course, Twitter Lite still provides the key features of Twitter as well as app-like performance such as a wide range of push notifications and offline support.

As the first global launch partner for Twitter Lite, Vodafone is providing a customized timeline of top cricket-related Tweets available via Twitter Lite to the telco’s smartphone customers throughout the T20 season. Now any Indian sports fan on Vodafone’s network of 200 million subscribers across the country can use Twitter Lite to get real-time updates from their favorite cricket league, teams, players, matches or commentators, just in time as the T20 cricket season kicks off.

Maya Hari, Managing Director, Twitter Asia Pacific, said, “India today is already one of Twitter’s largest and fastest growing audience markets worldwide and we’ve seen significant usage around key moments in Indian society such as the recent State Elections, Union Budget, and the Jio FilmFare Awards. We’ve taken feedback from our Indian users to make Twitter Lite a faster, more affordable way to use Twitter all over the country, especially for people that have slow mobile connections and expensive data plans. With Twitter Lite, we’re excited to give our existing Indian users a better overall Twitter experience, as well as reach many more Indians outside of the main metros who can now try Twitter as their best way to see what’s happening in the world right now.”

Arvinder Gujral, Senior Director, Business Development, Twitter Asia Pacific , said, “Cricket is one of the most talked about topics in India, and the volume and diversity of conversations with fans, players, commentators and teams is reflected on Twitter. For example, there were over 10.6 million Tweets about the Indian Premier League (IPL) during last year’s T20 season. Through the partnership with Vodafone, we are increasing the accessibility and visibility of Twitter Lite on one of the largest mobile networks in the world. We’re excited to have Vodafone, a brand that shares our passion for cricket, on board to help us reach millions of Indians and unite the nation in the spirit of cricket. This is an innovative example of how we can partner with companies all over the world to make Twitter Lite more useful in people’s daily lives.”

Avneesh Khosla, Executive Vice President, Products & Services, Vodafone India said, “We are happy to partner with Twitter to offer this innovative service to our customers. It will enable our customers to access a selection of curated Twitter content in their areas of interest - first with cricket and more to come across other genres. Throughout the 10th season of IPL, our customers can look forward to enjoying some great content using Twitter Lite on Vodafone SuperNet.”